I’ve been spending a lot of time lately crawling through the archives of amazing speakers from XA-Speakers (where you can download to your Itunes for FREE a bunch of incredible talks on recovery.)

I came up in sobriety in southern California and I had the privilege of sitting in meetings with people who (I didn’t know this at the time) travel the world talking about this thing. I’ve really really missed those speaker meetings since I moved away from Cali. In Austin we have Citywide, which is very cool. But for the blog purposes, I’ve decided to start a new section grabbing bits of things I’ve heard since I’ve been here. Here we go:

The Mix

Artist: Earl H.

“I think it’s interesting that they (the writers of the Big Book) suggest to me that I should live a life of love and tolerance. They throw tolerance right up there because they saw me coming. I’m a notoriously intolerant human being.”

“My disclaimer (not that I need one) is that there are a lot of people who have a lot of ways into this thing (sobriety). I had to (in reading the book) keep my eye on the prize, because I’ve always been more interested in the feelings than in the facts (for example, dissecting the 9th word on p.77). The prize for me, is becoming a person who is comfortable living sober.”

Artist: Scott R.

“I pray you’re out of plans. If you’re new here and you have a plan, it’s probably a beaut. DON’T USE YOUR PLAN. If you have a plan, find one of us after the meeting and tell us your plan. We want to know the plan.”

“You could be right, but not today. Today is not your day.”

“I crossed the line I said I would never cross. I put a needle in a my arm. Why? Why not? It was time.”

Artist: Sister Bea

“It’s a miracle that I believe in something.”

“Our founders meant for us to use this thing (sobriety) in the present tense (meaning, actively, in our lives.)”

“One of the greatest promises can be found on p. 100 of the Big Book. “When we look back we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in god’s hands were better than anything we could have planned.”

But what about (fill in the blank with your drama of the moment). “See to it (not maybe you should, not it might be a good idea–SEE TO IT) that your relationship with him (her, it, whatever power is greater than you) is right (MAKE IT RIGHT!) and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. That is the GREAT FACT for us.”

Artist: Patti O.

“The book of AA says more will be revealed. It doesn’t say how.”

“I never had resentments until I came to AA.”

“Life has been very painful and I’m very dramatic, so usually refer to it (my life) as the dark night of the soul, unless it’s your life we’re talking about, and then I just tell you to get over yourself.”

“In those (painful) times, if I don’t drink and don’t die, and don’t drink and don’t die, and I eventually get beyond it, in retrospect, I’ve been able to see that every time I thought my life was falling apart, in reality, it was falling together and it had to be exactly that way for god to move me to where he’d have me be. See, I’m the kind of person, I settle…but God has a plan for me beyond my wildest imagination.”